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Saturday, June 24, 2017

Murder at Sunset

My daughter's favorite book is "An Exaltation of Larks", which lists many colorful names given to groups of things (not just birds). E.g.: an ostentation of peacocks, a parliament of owls, a charm of finches, a murmuration of starlings and -- of course -- a murder of crows.

I knew I wanted to do a sunset (which is actually a gradient, not an ombre, but still allowed), with something shown in silhouette. Enter my daughter again, as whenever we drive on highway 85 to my brother's place in Los Gatos, she's always got an eye out for the crow-covered telephone wire that spans it before our exit. So, a murder of crows at sunset it is. :)

Making them involved these basic steps:

Pour the gradient layers in a loaf mold

Unmold and cut the bars

Cut the silhouettes out of each bar with a cookie cutter

Put the cut bars into individual bar molds (securing them in place with soy wax)

Pour the black, wait, unmold and trim off any excess black

For each batch, I used 10 shades, and following Amy's advice, I didn't measure out my colorants, but instead tweaked the colors by eye, drop by drop. The orange I used was very frustrating, as no matter how much I mixed it, it was determined to make spots!

I premixed these at 2:1 liquid coconut oil:mica, and put them in little dropper bottles. Because they're so bright, I just used a little to get the look I was going for, as inspired by this photo:

I ended up having to hack apart my meticulously designed and 3D-printed cutter, as it was totally wrong and impossible to use. This is it from TinkerCad.com:

The printed version is shown below, from my optimistic first attempt.

As you can see from the close-up below, the soap cracked when I tried to cut it. You can also see that the gradient isn't at all smooth, as I tried to use too many shades.

For my second try, I hacked up the cutter, but the batch ended up way too pink.

So, the third try, below, is the final one (shown with the dissected cutter parts).

They came out exactly as I'd planned, and look really cool in person (yeah!), but disappointingly blobby in photographs (boo!). They say the camera adds 10 pounds, but really? ;)

Recipe

I used my version of Soap Queen's Old Faithful recipe (swapping the Palm Oil for Lard):

32% Coconut Oil

32% Olive Oil

32% Lard

4% Castor

I mixed it with a wire whisk attachment on my stick blender until emulsified, then added 1 oz/ppo of Nurture Soap's 8th and Ocean mixed with my favorite decelerator (Nature's Garden White Tea & Ginger). The result is too sweet-smelling for me, but it was very well behaved.

I also used my standard 1.5:1 water:lye ratio and added a modest amount (for me!) of Sodium Lactate (0.25 oz/ppo), so it would be firm enough to hold its shape when unmolded, but not crack when I cut the birds.

As for the gradient layers, I measured out 10 equal amounts of batter, colored them and mixed them very well with a mini mixer (which I hate, as they're so under-powered and add bubbles, grrr!). I let it sit a bit to thicken up, then spooned in each layer and smoothed it out.

I CPOP'd both the loaf and the bars at 140F for an hour, then left them in the oven for another 3 hours.

BTW, I was intrigued enough with all this to order my own 3D printer, which should be here tomorrow. Woot -- a new device to play with! :)

I think that most folks in the US have access to a 3D printer at their local library, but all ours are booked until next year; one of the problems with living in Silicon Valley. Otherwise, you can order prints from TinkerCad, like I did. It was pricier than I'd hoped ($12, including shipping), but came in less than a week.

Can you guess the first thing I want to make? A narrow mixer attachment for my big stick blender so I can stop using that stupid mini mixer! ;)

Update (6/30/17)

After a few days of wrangling, we've got the BIBO 3D printer working. And as promised, here's my narrow mixer attachment:

It's very crude, and the mixer may be too powerful -- you can see that the green color + oil I mixed had it coming out of the top. I'm going to order a variable speed mixer, which may help, but I really need to add a hood to the attachment to make it work right.

Where were you to remind me of that when I was stressing myself out?!? :) A friend who didn't manage to get her soap submitted used a stamp instead -- much, much easier! I don't know why I'm so obsessed with having the design go all the way through the bar...

WOW - that is one gorgeous soap. The sunset colors are perfect. And I learned something new - a bunch of crows is really a murder of crows. Wonder if that was Alfred Hitchcock's inspiration in the movie "The Birds". Very well done Claudia (as always). Will look forward to seeing what you make with your new 3-D printer.

Hi Claudia!Lovely soaps - all of them!Ingenious plan and I totally agree much better than a stamp, which would be gone after the first use....this is great how it goes all the way through. I think making the embeds and inserting into the pour would have worked well too.

Congrats to you for getting your own 3-D printer....I wouldn't know what to do with it, but would love to see the mixer attachment you make.

I enjoy all your Blogs and always look forward to reading them...and drooling over your soaps.

Sly

PS: sorry if this turns into a repeat comment - the first time I wrote it, it disappeared before I his publish, so not sure where it went.

Just FYI, the printer came, and it's HUGE -- like 14" x 18" x 14"! The few instructions it came with are all in Chinese, and we didn't get it to work, yet. I'm not giving up, but 3d printing is clearly bleeding edge at this point.

It's just beautiful! I love the pink one too. Congratulations Claudia! Wow, that is amazing that you used a 3-D printer! I have had the same problem with the mini mixer. Can you really make a smaller attachment for your stick blender? That would be great; I was looking for a smaller one too. I have resorted to using a artist palette knife to mix my colors with a little bit of oil on a piece of plexiglass. It really gets the clumps out.

Claudia how cleaver and so beautiful! Could you print out the birds like wafer birds with your printer and anchor them into a slab mold? Pour your base and then when unmolded fill the holes where the crow/wafers left indentations? Congrats on your new printer! WOW!